Get your holiday Help! requests in early

Happy Sunday. We’re in mid-October now – mid-autumn, if you live in most other places, she wrote with gritted teeth – and as annoying as those big-box stores are with the lights and trees, because these columns are prepared well in advance, it’s time to think about the holidays.

In the past, Help! has offered all sorts of holidays-related information, including questions and answers about decorations, events, food and where to find it, what stores or restaurants will be open, recipes; you name it, and you seem to love it. Readers ask us to repeat certain recipes and information year after year and we’re only too happy to provide it.

The bittersweet problem is that too often, these requests come too late. It does you no good if you don’t get information about where to get a certain kind of decoration, or that fruitcake, until January.

So if you want information or have a recipe that pertains to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, Kwanzaa or other holidays to come, please get it here soon. If it regards Halloween, do it immediately.

You read it first here: Happy holidays.

P.S. -- The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) may be gone, but Jane Parker fruitcakes remain. Order them online. Go to www.janeparker.com.

Dear Help!: I’ve had several kitchen sink leaks, so that now the floor of the cabinet under the sink is very warped. Do you know of someone who would do this type of repair?

Pauline Kranick

Rockledge

Years ago, Brevard Restoration in Cocoa Beach was highly recommended by our readers and we’ve continued to pass on the information. Speak to owner David Harrell about what can or can’t be done; call 321-591-9254.

Dear Help!: How can I restore pictures that I have inadvertently deleted from my digital camera? I remember seeing something about this in your column this past summer but I did not need it at the time and so I did not save the information you gave.

Connie Etheridge

West Melbourne

Job one for anyone who has questions about photography is, “Call the experts,” and they are at the Camera Club of Brevard, which meets at 6:30 p.m. the first Tuesday of every month at the Eau Gallie Civic Center, 151 Highland Ave., Melbourne.

Otherwise, you can purchase and download software like Recover My Photos (www.recovermyphotos.com) that may help you find lost pictures, or search online for information about the steps to take with your make-and-model camera.

But the best idea would be to contact CCB. Email info@ccbrevard.com or call the incredibly helpful Richard Thomson, 321-848-1110.